THE MEMOIRS OF MUSTAPHA HUSSAIN - Malaysia Today

Batu Gajah Prison 309
warders’ footsteps broke the night’s ghostly silence. I learned to visualise
how these Sungai Manik Malays spiritually and mentally prepared
themselves to face their foes. Not long after the chanting episode, all the
Sungai Manik detainees were sent home in army trucks. I kept thinking
about them long after they were gone. I still do.
There were several Kempeitai detectives in prison. One had eleven
wives, others about four each. They were lucky that the British had
arrested them before the Bintang Tiga could get to them. Otherwise, they
would just be statistics. We were living in an upside down Malaya, where
the mighty turned meek and the weak gained power.
Apart from cigarettes, I sorely missed reading and writing. I was
almost at wit’s end. It was a cruel mental torture. Each time I managed
to get hold of bits of newspaper, mostly dated ones used to wrap food
with, I would relish every word. Sometimes I would write or draw pictures
in the sand out in the prison yard.
Smoking
Detainees were not allowed to smoke. To me, a heavy smoker, cigarettes
were of utmost importance. Without it, my brain cells went unlit, my
vision and hearing in the doldrums and my taste buds negative. Whenever
the sweet aroma of cigarettes smoked by white officers floated into my
nostrils, every cell in my body screamed for a cigarette. That was how
terribly nicotine gripped a smoker. While sitting in the shed, our eyeballs
would follow British soldiers’ every move. We watched them not out of
fear or love, but we were interested in the object that lay between their
two lips.
Where would they throw the butts? If they threw them on to the
ground and then walk away, one of us would slowly pick it up. If still
lit, we would lengthen the butt with a piece of paper and share it among
three or four people. If the butt was dead, we would undo it, roll the
tobacco in another piece of paper and share it. We had to remind each
other not to inhale more than two puffs, but often, before it could get to
the third person, the tobacco was all used up. What could be expected of
a cigarette with such a tiny amount of tobacco but inhaled with great
gusto? There was a white soldier who would smoke his cigarettes almost
to the end, throw it down and then ground it with his boot, leaving
absolutely nothing for us. We despised this mean fellow!
Once, a friend gave me one whole ‘Kooa’ (Japanese) cigarette that I
hid in my coat’s lining. I was thrilled when the warder inspecting us at
the steel door did not find it. It was my lucky day indeed – one whole